- Shantaia has signed with Walk Off Entertainment for management, led by CEO Chris Ruediger and Artist Manager Kyra Tillotson.
- She's dropping her eight-track album One Trick Pony on Oct. 16, previewed by "Faster Horses," "Rose Colored Glasses," "Why On Earth" and new single "Risk You Run."
- She's a five-time SCMA Award winner with 6M+ career streams and a Top 35 Canadian country radio single.
- This past June, she was named a finalist in SoFi's Amplify Your Ambitions Contest, created with Kelsea Ballerini and the CMA.
Shantaia has signed with Walk Off Entertainment for management, with CEO Chris Ruediger and Artist Manager Kyra Tillotson leading the partnership.
Originally from Spiritwood, Saskatchewan, and now based in Nashville, Shantaia built her early career on a 2023 recording deal with Universal Music Canada, which produced her breakout single “Broke to Brand New” and her first Top 40 radio placement.
A five-time SCMA Award winner with more than six million career streams, Shantaia has shared stages with John Mayer, Kane Brown, Tyler Childers and Midland, and has played major festival circuits across Canada and the U.S.
This past June, she was named one of three finalists out of more than 500 applicants in SoFi’s Amplify Your Ambitions Contest, created with Kelsea Ballerini and the CMA.
The signing lands alongside the rollout of her eight-track album One Trick Pony, due Oct. 16. She’s previewed the project with “Faster Horses,” “Rose Colored Glasses,” “Why On Earth” and latest single “Risk You Run,” which she says leans further into the soul and R&B influences that feel most natural to her voice.
For Walk Off Entertainment, the deal extends a busy stretch of Nashville additions. The company, which struck a global label partnership with Virgin Music Group in 2025, signed Georgia artist Josiah Siska to management late last year and continues building a roster around genre-blending talent.
Shantaia’s signing also lands amid a broader wave of 2026 Nashville management moves, following Dallas Wilson’s signing with The Core Entertainment, Carlisle Wright’s deal with Joan of Arc Music, and Tucker Wetmore’s move to Sandbox Entertainment.
Takeaways
Walk Off Entertainment keeps picking up artists who don’t sit neatly in one lane: first Josiah Siska, now Shantaia’s soul-leaning country sound. For a company still building out its roster, that’s a deliberate bet on genre-blenders rather than straight-down-the-middle country acts.
Shantaia’s comment that she’d been working informally with the team for over a year also suggests this wasn’t a reactive signing chasing her SoFi finalist buzz, it was already in motion.
Does Walk Off’s pattern of signing genre-crossing artists become the company’s defining niche in Nashville? Is One Trick Pony a lasting pivot toward soul and R&B, or a detour from her country roots?
